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And when the doctor began, despite her resolution, she screamed.

Jekri awoke in her cell, naked and cold. Her body ached all over, and when she tried to sit up, her stomach roiled. She crawled on her belly over to the elimination hole just in time to vomit up what little she had eaten of the poor food they had given her. She tasted bile, and her stomach heaved again, straining to empty itself of something that wasn't there.

Shivering, Jekri wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She crawled over to the pile of dirty clothes and with an effort began to dress. Her head ached, and there was a burning pain in her wrist. She looked down at it. The flesh was an angry green. She touched it gently, hissed, and pulled her finger back, but not before she had ascertained there was something hard and round embedded beneath the skin.

Was this how she would die, then? Were they going to keep infecting her, inserting things into her body, and see how long it took her body to surrender? What she would not give for a clean execution!

She was sick, and weak, and wounded, and the rags did not seem so foul this time when she clambered over to them and collapsed. Jekri fell asleep at once, and dreamed of good food, Romulan ale, clean clothes, and the touch of Verrak's hands.

Jekri was jolted awake by agony and the guard's laughter. She flailed like a fish and was certain that for a moment her heart had stopped. He had indeed set his weapon for the next highest level. She wondered how many were on this particular one. He wouldn't kill her, not deliberately anyway. She heard the hum and crackle as the forcefield snapped back into place. Heavy footsteps told her the guard was leaving.

She made a decision. She could not live like this. Somehow, some way, she had to either escape or find a means with which to take her own life. With every minute that passed in this hole, the latter option looked like the most appealing.

The hum of die transporter made her turn her head. There it was, another plate of the awful-looking stuff that passed for food. Despite her earlier illness, Jekri found she was hungry. Her stomach growled as her eyes took in the sight of old cheese, moldy bread, and withered fruit. At least there was some variety, she mused with dark humor.

Hie fruit looked the least offensive. She picked up the puckered, lumpy shape of a quaeri, sniffed at it, and cautiously took a small bite.

Her teeth bit down on something hard. She dropped the fruit and her hands flew to her mouth. Quaeris did not have hard pits; they had tiny, digestible seeds. What new torment was this?

She spat the offending object into her palm, and stared at it for a second, not recognizing it. Then all at once, hope spurted through her and she stared with round, wide eyes.

Embedded in the fruit, beyond visual detection, as if it had grown there, was a small, hexagonal piece of metal. She had almost swallowed it. She was not certain what it was for, but her mind raced with possibilities: a disruptor, a communication device, a piece of medical equipment that she could adjust to neutralize the forcefield.

Slowly, so as not to attract more notice than she already had if someone was monitoring her, she closed her fingers around the precious piece of metal and took another bite of the quaeri. Its luscious juice had long since evaporated, and it was tough and chewy, but she barely noticed the taste. It was nourishment, and she would need every ounce of her strength when the time for escape came. Someone from the outside was helping her. He or she had managed to materialize the piece of metal into her food by placing its signal on that of the standard meal transport. "Piggybacking," the Earthers called it.

Then another thought came, and the food turned to ash in her mouth. What if this were merely another type of torture? Nothing was beyond Romulans, as she well knew. Would they study her